Picture Perfect

Download the 2007 packagePRINTING Excellence Awards nomination form.

As a unanimous vote among packagePRINTING’s 2006 Excellence Awards judges, Hayward, Calif.-based Rotocolor’s “Marilyn Merlot” wine label is this year’s Best of Show honoree for its superior flexographic printing. “It really shows where flexo can go,” said Roy Webb, national sales manager, Mark Andy. “It has fantastic quality and could sit side-by-side with the lithographic print.” This entry was also a first place winner in the Wine Labels - Flexo (Process) category.

“The piece is exceptional and shows how far along flexo has come,” said Bob Waddington, general manager, UVitec Printing Ink. “The skin tones are amazing."

And the skin tones are important on this piece, because this is a wine label which garners a famous photo of Marilyn Monroe. Two strategically-placed red, sparkling ribbons were printed on an overlay for the consumer to peel back to reveal the complete image of Monroe.

Although each of the judges voted for this wine label as Best of Show, it almost never made it into the competition. “We are the kind of company that doesn’t like to show off, but our ink vendor was pushing us to enter this label. We looked at it as if it was another printing job; our customers expect this kind of quality on everything we do,” said Thomas Vargas, general manager, Rotocolor. “Our customer always thought that to get quality like this, it had to be printed offset. But we did a test run to show how far flexo has come and he was sold instantly!”

He added this 200-linescreen wine label was printed on a 10˝, 8-color Mark Andy 4150 press with DuPont plates using UV inks from Water Ink Technologies. Also, for the image, Rotocolor used Fasson BOPP and film overlaminate, and for the peel back, it used Fasson clear BOPP. The foil was from KURZ and the dies were from I.KELA and Wilson.

The rest of the field

This year, packagePRINTING recieved nearly 180 entries from more than 30 different companies. Commenting on this year’s competition, Jim Flynn, printing technology, Gallus, said “Everything on the winner’s table [first place] is excellent.”

Runners up for the Best of Show award were an “Avery Lane” wine label printed by Collotype Labels and the “2006 Calendar” by McDowell Label and Screen Printing Co., Inc. The wine label took first place in the Wine Labels - Offset (Process) category and the calendar took first place in the Labels - Combination Process category.

In the Specialty Category -
Technical Achievement, first place went to Zumbiel Packaging for the “Tran-Z-Print™ Kraft Target 10+2 Racing Promotion J-Card,” which used a unique ink formulation for an ink-on-paperboard application that allows for heat transference of an image on the box to an appropriate piece of clothing. Second place went to McDowell Label and Screen Printing Co., Inc.’s “Chicago Collection.” The entry was a 30-color job which required four passes through a 10-color, all-UV press with servo drive and reinsertion capability. But that’s only after the substrate was first developed with the help of Accucote. It had to be a high-gloss stock on both sides, along with a special removable adhesive. pP